Mega-Thread: Gun Control Thread

[diller]

Its amusing when someone ignorant to the nature of something complains on why they don't understand the nature of something and just declares it 'plain stupid and serves no purpose'.

I explained my reasoning by it made sense at the time it was implemented, not anymore - and natural right.... LMAO!

It's a constitutional right, we have that right by natural choice and those who agreed upon it, that is also nature.

/facepalm

[Doctor Amadeus]

I explained my reasoning by it made sense at the time it was implemented, not anymore - and natural right.... LMAO!/facepalm

Rights don't begin or end with laws, they begin and end when people recognize them as something nobody can or should control. If you have to fights for your rights, if you have to legislate it, then it isn't a natural right. It's a privilege.

The founding fathers understood and knew people had the right to defend themselves and their property. Wasn't always 911

[Edge-]

If you have to fights for your rights, if you have to legislate it, then it isn't a natural right. It's a privilege.

TIL America has literally zero rights, as we fought for and legislated every single right in this nation today.

Amazing.

[diller]

The founding fathers understood and knew people had the right to defend themselves and their property. Wasn't always 911

No the founding fathers thought what made sense AT THE TIME (I don't even think it was made by the founding fathers since it's an amendment), also it was directly copied from English law.

I'll shut my mouth on this subject before I get an aneurysm from the stupidness people post.

[Doctor Amadeus]

TIL America has literally zero rights, as we fought for and legislated every single right in this nation today.

Amazing.

If you or someone else can legislate another person rights. I would argue no they aren't. The constitution shouldn't be up for debate. It's philosophical point of view. The spirit was inspired by lack of recognizing a natural right.

Someone else's owning a gun doesn't infringe on any of your freedoms, none.

- - - Updated - - -

No the founding fathers thought what made sense AT THE TIME (I don't even think it was made by the founding fathers since it's an amendment), also it was directly copied from English law.

I'll shut my mouth on this subject before I get an aneurysm from the stupidness people post.

Well English's law came from the romans, and we can argue where those came from. But we don't need to. The simple fact is if it's something you need that to live that is provided for you by nature, the only way that right can be taken away, is if it was never a right to begin with.

You feeding yourself, is no threat to me, you fending for yourself and life, doesn't threaten me either. I have no right to try to deny you unless those things come in conflict.

[Edge-]

If you or someone else can legislate another person rights. I would argue no they aren't. The constitution shouldn't be up for debate.

It literally is. That's the whole point of it. That's why the Bill of Rights and Amendments exist, and why we passed the 18th Amendment, prohibiting the manufacture, import, or sale of alchol in the United States, followed by the 21st Amendment which repealed the 18th Amendment.

You appear to be grossly ignorant of US history and what the Constitution actually is.

[Doctor Amadeus]

It literally is. That's the whole point of it. That's why the Bill of Rights and Amendments exist, and why we passed the 18th Amendment, prohibiting the manufacture, import, or sale of alchol in the United States, followed by the 21st Amendment which repealed the 18th Amendment.

You appear to be grossly ignorant of US history and what the Constitution actually is.

So you think no rights exist without a piece of paper. Interesting.

[Grinning Serpent]

If you or someone else can legislate another person rights. I would argue no they aren't. The constitution shouldn't be up for debate. It's philosophical point of view. The spirit was inspired by lack of recognizing a natural right.

Rights are just a fiction. They're things that everyone *ought* to have but we quite regularly see them trampled on and minimized, even here in the "land of the free."

And the Constitution is explicitly intended to be reviewed and revised as the country and its people need it to be. I'd imagine the folks that wrote it would be pretty surprised and disappointed we haven't really done much to it recently.

[Endus]

If you or someone else can legislate another person rights. I would argue no they aren't. The constitution shouldn't be up for debate. It's philosophical point of view. The spirit was inspired by lack of recognizing a natural right.

1> Rights without legislation are nothing but a nice idea one dude has. They ARE legislation. All rights are legislated. By definition.

2> The Founding Fathers you worship were so dead-set against the idea that the Constitution shouldn't be up for debate that they intentionally included the means by which that Constitution was to be amended over time to better-suit the needs of the USA and its people as time and society marched onward. Hell, Jefferson though you should throw the whole thing out and start from scratch every couple decades or so.

The Constitution is not a "philosophical point of view". It's a legal document crafted under committee with much debate and no one being really happy with the result and the explicit intent that it be changed even more over time. That's just historical fact.

Someone else's owning a gun doesn't infringe on any of your freedoms, none.

Again, attacking arguments nobody ever made.

Well English's law came from the romans, and we can argue where those came from. But we don't need to. The simple fact is if it's something you need that to live that is provided for you by nature, the only way that right can be taken away, is if it was never a right to begin with.

Claiming English law is "Roman" is so vague as to be irrelevant. More of its systems come from Anglo-Saxon law systems and local traditions. Most European systems of law are "Roman" in only the vaguest sense. Civil law systems are much more closely tied to Roman archetypes, and English Common Law and its derivatives are pretty wildly divergent.

And again; you keep making this claim that these rights are "inalienable", but under US law, they very much can be taken away. Again; can a violent ex-felon with diagnosed severe mental health issues go legally buy a gun, in the USA? Yes or no.

If "no", that right's been taken away from them. Your argument inherently positions the 2nd Amendment (as well as voting, for that matter) as privileges under US law, by your use of the world.

So is it you that's wrong, or is it the entire American legal system? Because you're directly contradicting it with your argument.

[Doctor Amadeus]

Rights are just a fiction. They're things that everyone *ought* to have but we quite regularly see them trampled on and minimized, even here in the "land of the free."

And the Constitution is explicitly intended to be reviewed and revised as the country and its people need it to be. I'd imagine the folks that wrote it would be pretty surprised and disappointed we haven't really done much to it recently.

I’d agree. But I think you would agree a piece of paper alone doesn’t make laws if those who agree to them don’t believe and agree.


The emancipation proclamation didn’t make slaves free. It took several decades later and people still aren’t as free. Because as I said if people don’t believe in it then it means nothing.

[Endus]

So you think no rights exist without a piece of paper. Interesting.

Feel free to go out into the wild and point me to any particular natural phenomenon that I can find rights in, for myself.

Yes, no rights exist outside being framed as such in law by a human society. Obviously. How is this even an argument?

- - - Updated - - -

I’d agree. But I think you would agree a piece of paper alone doesn’t make laws if those who agree to them don’t believe and agree.

This is nonsense. If it's on paper as the law, then it exists. If it's not in the law, it doesn't exist. People's "agreement" is entirely irrelevant to either state. Legal systems don't require the consent of the governed.

[Edge-]

So you think no rights exist without a piece of paper. Interesting.

No, I think you fundamentally do not understand the Constitution or the notion of positive rights.

[Doctor Amadeus]

No, I think you fundamentally do not understand the Constitution or the notion of positive rights.

No I don’t think you do. If you think a piece of paper and not the ideals it stands for don’t go hand in hand. Then it’s more than the constitution you don’t understand.

I treat the rights in it with the faith that if it isn’t every bit as good as its word then it’s meaningless. It’s true it’s an imperfect document but it is a complete one. Under you rights are privileges. As it’s written writes are human demands that must be met to have a country.

It’s the citizens and those that as citizens uphold their duty to the constitution that make it complete.

Evidence by the example I gave and every other.

[Edge-]

No I don’t think you do. If you think a piece of paper and not the ideals it stands for don’t go hand in hand. Then it’s more than the constitution you don’t understand.

The ideals are wonderful, but without that piece of paper that's all they are, ideals. Not rights.

Under you rights are privileges.

No, a right is a right. A privilege is a privilege. If you think I'm confusing the two you're welcome to link to the exact post where I give you this impression.

[Doctor Amadeus]

The ideals are wonderful, but without that piece of paper that's all they are, ideals. Not rights.



No, a right is a right. A privilege is a privilege. If you think I'm confusing the two you're welcome to link to the exact post where I give you this impression.

You can’t have one without the other. You don’t understand that I do. If you have no people you have no laws or rights.

A privilege is when you treat a right as though it’s ever yours to take that a power isn’t a responsibility shared. I’m not afraid of other people with freedom to choose and arm themselves. You are and based on the actions of a few want to take people’s rights away.

Even more gun restrictions playing with other people’s rights by your own admission has nothing to do with you.

[Endus]

No I don’t think you do. If you think a piece of paper and not the ideals it stands for don’t go hand in hand. Then it’s more than the constitution you don’t understand.

The idea isn't any different from "wouldn't it be nice if everyone got along" or "it's sweet that my cat and my ferret got married". Not until you pass it into actual law and it can actually be protected as a right.

Until it's law, you're not talking about a "right", at all. You're hypothesizing about what it would be nice to have as a right, but until it's law, you don't. It's a hope, a dream, not a reality.

I treat the rights in it with the faith that if it isn’t every bit as good as its word then it’s meaningless. It’s true it’s an imperfect document but it is a complete one. Under you rights are privileges. As it’s written writes are human demands that must be met to have a country.

You consistently won't acknowledge that you blatantly consider the right to bear arms a privilege, yourself. I've brought this up twice, and you ignore it every time.

It’s the citizens and those that as citizens uphold their duty to the constitution that make it complete.

Again, the law does not require the consent of the governed, in any way whatsoever. In a representative democracy, you could make a very limited case that a bad law could change election results based on what the public wants changed, but that's still only ever going to be collective action; individual consent is utterly irrelevant to the law.

- - - Updated - - -

A privilege is when you treat a right as though it’s ever yours to take that a power isn’t a responsibility shared.

Again; this is exactly how you describe the 2nd Amendment. As a privilege. Based on this standard you describe.

[Gabriel]

There's no meaningful difference in regards to an AR-15 and a shotgun if we're talking about "some dude shooting into a crowd of people." Things like rate of fire, magazine capacity, and such don't much matter when they are firing at unaware, unarmed people. Those sorts of things only really matter if you're attacking someone that's shooting back or otherwise have to worry about being shot at... and mass shooters pretty much invariably either surrender or commit suicide once they can no longer freely attack random people, so it's even less relevant than it would otherwise be. If you filter out Las Vegas as the obvious outlier, our worst mass shootings have largely all been committed with small caliber handguns, not rifles.

You'd be better off trying to restrict *caliber*, not mechanism. A semi-automatic rifle shooting little .22's or .17's is going to be a lot less capable of fucking up entire rooms of people than a bolt-action rifle firing .308 or .30-06 or a pump shotgun firing #00 buck. Problem with that, of course, is that ammo is fucking everywhere and it's something you absolutely can manufacture at home. I imagine people would just devise ways of creating their own cases if you somehow managed to stop an influx of new/used cases for hand loading.

There it is, the stupidest take I've seen all year. Semi-automatic guns are far better at killing people than bolt action rifles or pump/break open shotguns. Why do you think militaries moved away from bolt action rifles to (semi)automatic weapons? Because they look cooler?

Rimfire calibers are just as lethal as larger center fire rounds. Possibly even more so because of the non-existent recoil, which makes them easier for limp wristed incels to use. Hell, the highest body count school shooter in the US used a .22 pistol as one of his two guns.

And FYI, you can't reliably manufacture rimfire ammo at home, dumbass.

Why do you larp as a gun owner, when you clearly have no fucking idea what you are talking about? It is embarrassing to watch.

[B]
Now, if your concern is more mundane gun crime, a handgun ban would be *the* silver bullet as far as approaching it from the gun end goes. But you'll never in a hundred years get a handgun ban (or even a meaningful restriction) through Congress and even if you did, there's hundreds of millions of the fucking things out there already. It's unlikely an "average criminal" will ever have trouble obtaining a piece of shit low caliber handgun for their needs in this country, so you'd basically just be disarming people who aren't looking to commit crimes anyway.

I don't think we can "fix" our country's shitty gun culture and moronic worship of "doing stupid shit with guns" from the gun legislation angle. I think we have to approach that from different angles.

You are right. USA is FUBAR in this regard.

And no, you wouldn't be disarming people who aren't looking to commit crimes, you would be lessening the flow of new guns to people who shouldn't own guns. It is literally the first step that has to be taken so that the situation will ever get fixed.

[Muzjhath]

Yes, the balancing point on the political spectrum has changed over the years. The founders were basically the antifa of their time and far more left leaning than the rest of the population who were sympathetic to the Crown.

This is on the whole very wrong. Were some radicals among them that? Yes. Mostly people from Boston like Sam Adams and some of his protoges.

Jefferson? Fuck no. Him and others of the Top 1% of old Virginia planters had been working on "No Importation of Slaves" to monopolise the slave market. They didn't want to forbid slavery, they wanted a stranglehold on the market as they had enough slaves to be able to sell slaves to small landholders while having their own supply keep up. Yes it's as disgusting as it sounds.

And for home defense, in a society with very few guns a baseball bad is very good force multiplier. Unless you're forced to assume anyone breaking into your home is armed with a firearm.
In Sweden that'd be stupid because you'd instantly face a higher penalty than if you weren't. As a burglar (even with the fact most burglaries happen to empty houses).

[Grinning Serpent]

There it is, the stupidest take I've seen all year. Semi-automatic guns are far better at killing people than bolt action rifles or pump/break open shotguns. Why do you think militaries moved away from bolt action rifles to (semi)automatic weapons? Because they look cooler?

Rimfire calibers are just as lethal as larger center fire rounds. Possibly even more so because of the non-existent recoil, which makes them easier for limp wristed incels to use. Hell, the highest body count school shooter in the US used a .22 pistol as one of his two guns.

And FYI, you can't reliably manufacture rimfire ammo at home, dumbass.

Why do you larp as a gun owner, when you clearly have no fucking idea what you are talking about? It is embarrassing to watch.

Wasn't really suggesting you can reload rimfire but pop off sis.

You're full of shit if you think dinky .22's are going to have anywhere near the impact of buck or .308. Absent hitting a vital area on the first couple shots, a .22 is not going to be terribly lethal. A .22 to center mass *might* be lethal. A load of buck or a "deer rifle" round to center mass is almost *certainly* lethal. There's a huge difference.

You can be as mad as you want, but it's fucking physics and physiology, jackass. Velocity and energy ("power") in a load is crucial. It's why a dinky little .223 that weighs about 2g creates about three times the energy as a much larger (but slower) 9mm despite the 9mm bullet weighing nearly four times as much. Or why, despite there not being much of a difference in terms of bullet size between .22 and .223 (both in the 2-3g range and similar dimensions, with roughly identical diameter), a .223 carries around ten times the energy of a .22.

If .22 was deadly and effective, military forces and police forces would use it. When you're talking about firing tens of thousands or millions or billions of rounds, the cost savings would be quite significant. But no one uses .22 as a lethal round (supposedly, there are Israeli police that use .22 in modified pistols for "less lethal" takedowns? I couldn't find what I'd call reliable information on it though, sounds like Fudd lore) in that capacity because it doesn't have the reliability needed.

.22 will kill people just fine. It's the most deadly cartridge in America by crime statistics, if I remember right. But it doesn't have the same impact as larger loads, even if you can fire dozens of them in the time it takes to fire several shotgun shells.

You are right. USA is FUBAR in this regard.

And no, you wouldn't be disarming people who aren't looking to commit crimes, you would be lessening the flow of new guns to people who shouldn't own guns. It is literally the first step that has to be taken so that the situation will ever get fixed.

The way I see it, if bad guy gets a gun if he happens to want one, there's not much reason good guy shouldn't be allowed to have a gun if he passes the necessary checks (UBCs, whatever.) I don't directly credit the "arms race" concept, but it's more like "we have a long and established legal precedent of allowing people to own and carry guns for self-defense, so it is logical that people will want the tool that is the most effective for defense."

If the person passes the necessary checks to prove they are a safe and responsible prospective gun owner, then I don't see any reasonable justification for denying them the purchase.

[Gabriel]

Wasn't really suggesting you can reload rimfire but pop off sis.

You're full of shit if you think dinky .22's are going to have anywhere near the impact of buck or .308. Absent hitting a vital area on the first couple shots, a .22 is not going to be terribly lethal. A .22 to center mass *might* be lethal. A load of buck or a "deer rifle" round to center mass is almost *certainly* lethal. There's a huge difference.

You can be as mad as you want, but it's fucking physics and physiology, jackass. Velocity and energy ("power") in a load is crucial. It's why a dinky little .223 that weighs about 2g creates about three times the energy as a much larger (but slower) 9mm despite the 9mm bullet weighing nearly four times as much. Or why, despite there not being much of a difference in terms of bullet size between .22 and .223 (both in the 2-3g range and similar dimensions, with roughly identical diameter), a .223 carries around ten times the energy of a .22.

If .22 was deadly and effective, military forces and police forces would use it. When you're talking about firing tens of thousands or millions or billions of rounds, the cost savings would be quite significant. But no one uses .22 as a lethal round (supposedly, there are Israeli police that use .22 in modified pistols for "less lethal" takedowns? I couldn't find what I'd call reliable information on it though, sounds like Fudd lore) in that capacity because it doesn't have the reliability needed.

All this drivel just to agree with me...

.22 will kill people just fine. It's the most deadly cartridge in America by crime statistics, if I remember right. But it doesn't have the same impact as larger loads, even if you can fire dozens of them in the time it takes to fire several shotgun shells.

Did you think for one second what you just wrote here? Jesus christ...

The way I see it, if bad guy gets a gun if he happens to want one, there's not much reason good guy shouldn't be allowed to have a gun if he passes the necessary checks (UBCs, whatever.) I don't directly credit the "arms race" concept, but it's more like "we have a long and established legal precedent of allowing people to own and carry guns for self-defense, so it is logical that people will want the tool that is the most effective for defense."

If the person passes the necessary checks to prove they are a safe and responsible prospective gun owner, then I don't see any reasonable justification for denying them the purchase.

Then implement proper necessary checks to prove the people you give guns to know how to use and store them safely. I wasn't saying you should stop everyone from purchasing a gun, but not just anyone needs to have one.